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There was no love from Jessie Maynard in Portland. Help, yes. But the contempt was glacial. The Reverend was devoted to the needy, apparently, but only if they were properly clothed and not a young, hale, and very tall veteran. He kept Frank on the back porch near the driveway, where a Rocket 98 Oldsmobile lurked, and smiled knowingly as he said, by way of apology, “My daughters are inside the house.” It was an insult tax levied on the supplicant for an overcoat, sweater and two ten-dollar bills. Enough to get to Chicago and maybe halfway to Georgia. Still, hostile as he was, Reverend Maynard gave him helpful information for his journey. From Green’s travelers’
book he copied out some addresses and names of rooming houses, hotels where he would not be turned away.

Frank shoved the list in the pocket of the coat the Reverend gave him and, beyond Maynard’s view, stuffed the bills inside his socks. As he walked to the train station his nervousness about whether he would have another incident—uncontrollable, suspicious, destructive, and illegal—was shrinking. Besides, sometimes he could tell when a break was coming. It happened the first time when he boarded a bus near Fort Lawton, discharge papers intact. He was quiet, just sitting next to a brightly dressed woman. Her flowered skirt was a world’s worth of color, her blouse a loud red. Frank watched the flowers at the hem of her skirt blackening and her red blouse draining of color until it was white as milk. Then everybody, everything. Outside the window—trees, sky, a boy on a scooter, grass, hedges. All color disappeared and the world became a black-and-white movie screen. He didn’t yell then because he thought something bad was happening to his eyes. Bad, but fixable. He wondered if this was how dogs or cats or wolves saw the world. Or was he becoming color-blind? At the next stop he got off and walked toward a Chevron station, its black flames shooting out from the
V
. He wanted to get into the bathroom, pee, and look in the mirror to see if he had an eye infection, but the sign on the door stopped him. He relieved himself in the shrubbery behind the station, annoyed and a little
frightened by the colorless landscape. The bus was about to pull away, but stopped to let him reboard. He got off at the last stop—the bus station in the same city where he had disembarked to the sight of singing high school girls welcoming the war-weary vets. Out in the street in front of the bus station the sun hurt him. Its mean light drove him to look for shade. And there, under a northern oak, the grass turned green. Relieved, he knew he wouldn’t shout, smash anything, or accost strangers. That came later when, whatever the world’s palette, his shame and its fury exploded. Now, if the signs of draining color gave notice, he would have time to hurry up and hide. Thus, whenever a smattering of color returned, he was pleased to know he wasn’t going color-blind and the horrible pictures might fade. Confidence restored, he could abide a day and a half on a train to Chicago without incident.

Signaled by a redcap, he entered a passenger car, pushed through the green separation curtain, and found a window seat. The train’s rocking and the singing rails soothed him into a rare sleep that was so sound he missed the beginning of the riot, but not its end. He woke to the sobbing of a young woman being comforted by white-jacketed waiters. One of them nestled a pillow behind her head; another gave her a stack of linen napkins for her tears and the blood pouring from her nose. Next to her, looking away, was her silent, seething husband—his face a skull of shame and its partner, rigid anger.

When a waiter passed by, Frank touched his arm, asking, “What happened?” He pointed to the couple.

“You didn’t see that?”

“No. What was it?”

“That there is the husband. He got off at Elko to buy some coffee or something back there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The owner or customers or both kicked him out. Actually. Put their feet in his butt and knocked him down, kicked some more, and when his lady came to help, she got a rock thrown in her face. We got them back in the car, but the crowd kept the yelling up till we pulled away. Look,” he said. “See that?” He pointed to egg yolks, not sliding now but stuck like phlegm to the window.

“Anybody report to the conductor?” Frank asked him.

“You crazy?”

“Probably. Say, you know a good place to eat and get some sleep in Chicago? I got a list here. You know anything about these places?”

The waiter took off his glasses, replaced them and scanned Reverend Maynard’s list.

The waiter pursed his lips. “To eat go to Booker’s diner,” he said. “It’s close to the station. For sleeping the YMCA is always a good idea. It’s on Wabash. These hotels and what they call tourist homes can cost you a pretty penny and they might not let you in with those raggedy galoshes on your feet.”

“Thanks,” said Frank. “Glad to hear they got high standards.”

The waiter chuckled. “You want a shot? I got some Johnnie Red in my case.”
C. TAYLOR
was printed on his name tag.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”

Frank’s taste buds, uninterested in cheese sandwiches or oranges, came alive at the mention of whiskey. Just a shot. Just enough to settle and sweeten the world. No more.

The wait seemed long and just when Frank was convinced the man had forgotten, Taylor returned with a coffee cup, saucer and napkin. An inch of Scotch trembled invitingly in the thick white cup.

“Here you go,” said Taylor, then he rocked along the aisle to the sway of the train.

The abused couple whispered to each other, she softly, pleadingly, he with urgency. He will beat her when they get home, thought Frank. And who wouldn’t? It’s one thing to be publicly humiliated. A man could move on from that. What was intolerable was the witness of a woman, a wife, who not only saw it, but had dared to try to rescue—rescue!—him. He couldn’t protect himself and he couldn’t protect her either, as the rock in her face proved. She would have to pay for that broken nose. Over and over again.

With his head back on the window frame he napped a
bit following the cup of Scotch and woke when he heard someone taking the seat next to him. Odd. There were several empty seats throughout the car. He turned and, more amused than startled, examined his seat partner—a small man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. His pale blue suit sported a long jacket and balloon trousers. His shoes were white with unnaturally pointed toes. The man stared ahead. Ignored, Frank leaned back to the window to pick up his nap. As soon as he did, the zoot-suited man got up and disappeared down the aisle. No indentation was left in the leather seat.

Passing through freezing, poorly washed scenery, Frank tried to redecorate it, mind-painting giant slashes of purple and
X
’s of gold on hills, dripping yellow and green on barren wheat fields. Hours of trying and failing to recolor the western landscape agitated him, but by the time he stepped off the train he was calm enough. The station noise was so abrasive, though, that he reached for a sidearm. None was there, of course, so he leaned against a steel support until the panic died down.

An hour later he was scooping up navy beans and buttering corn bread. Taylor, the waiter, had been right. Booker’s was not only a good and cheap place to eat, but its company—diners, counter help, waitresses, and a loud argumentative cook—was welcoming and high-spirited. Laborers and the idle, mothers and street women, all ate and drank with the ease of family in their own kitchens.
It was that quick, down-home friendliness that led Frank to talk freely to the man on the stool next to his who volunteered his name.

“Watson. Billy Watson.” He held out his hand.

“Frank Money.”

“Where you from, Frank?”

“Aw, man. Korea, Kentucky, San Diego, Seattle, Georgia. Name it I’m from it.”

“You looking to be from here too?”

“No. I’m headed on back to Georgia.”

“Georgia?” the waitress shouted. “I got people in Macon. No good memories about that place. We hid in an abandoned house for half a year.”

“Hid from what? White sheets?”

“Naw. The rent man.”

“Same thing.”

“Why him?”

“Oh, please. It was 1938.”

Up and down the counter there was laughter, loud and knowing. Some began to compete with stories of their own deprived life in the thirties.

Me and my brother slept in a freight car for a month.

Where was it headed?

Away, was all we knew.

You ever sleep in a coop the chickens wouldn’t enter?

Aw, man, shut up. We lived in a ice house.

Where was the ice?

We ate it.

Get out!

I slept on so many floors, first time I saw a bed I thought it was a coffin.

You ever eat dandelions?

In soup, they good.

Hog guts. They call it something fancy now, but butchers used to throw them out or give them to us.

Feet too. Necks. All offal.

Hush. You ruining my business.

When the boasts and laughter died down, Frank retrieved Maynard’s list.

“You know any of these places? I was told the Y was best.”

Billy scanned the addresses and frowned. “Forget that,” he said. “Come on home with me. Stay over. Meet my family. You can’t leave tonight anyway.”

“True,” said Frank.

“I’ll get you back to the station on time tomorrow. You taking a bus south or the train? Bus is cheaper.”

“Train, Billy. Long as there’re porters, that’s the way I want to travel.”

“They sure make good money. Four hundred, five a month. Plus tips.”

They walked all the way to Billy’s house.

“We’ll buy you some decent shoes in the morning,” said Billy. “And maybe a stop at the Goodwill, okay?”

Frank laughed. He had forgotten how raggedy he looked. Chicago, braced by wind and a smug twilight sky, was full of strutting, well-dressed pedestrians moving quickly—as though meeting a deadline somewhere down sidewalks wider than any Lotus road. By the time they left downtown and entered Billy’s neighborhood, night was on its way.

“Say hello to my wife, Arlene, and this is our little man, Thomas.”

Frank thought Arlene pretty enough for the stage. Her pompadour crowned a high, smooth forehead over fierce brown eyes.

“You all want supper?” Arlene asked.

“No,” Billy said. “We ate already.”

“Good.” Arlene was getting ready for her night shift at the metal factory. She kissed Thomas on the top of his head as he sat at the kitchen table reading a book.

Billy and Frank leaned over the coffee table, rearranging its doodads for space to play tonk, talk, and nurse beer.

“What work you do?” asked Frank.

“Steel,” said Billy. “But we on strike now, so I join the line at the agency and take any daywork I can get.”

Earlier, when Billy introduced his son to Frank, the boy had lifted his left arm to shake hands. Frank noticed the right one sagging at his side. Now, shuffling the deck, he asked what happened to his son’s arm. Billy arranged
his hands in rifle position. “Drive-by cop,” he said. “He had a cap pistol. Eight years old, running up and down the sidewalk pointing it. Some redneck rookie thought his dick was underappreciated by his brother cops.”

“You can’t just shoot a kid,” said Frank.

“Cops shoot anything they want. This here’s a mob city. Arlene went a little crazy in the emergency room. They threw her out twice. But it turned out all right in the end. The bad arm kept him off the streets and in the classroom. He’s a math whiz. Wins competitions all over. Scholarships pouring in.”

“So the boy cop did him a favor.”

“No. No, no, no. Jesus stepped in and did that. He said, ‘Hold on there, Mr. Police Guy. Don’t hurt the least of mine. He who harms the least of mine disturbs the tranquillity of my mind.’ ”

Beautiful, thought Frank. Bible stuff works every time every place—except the fire zone. “Jesus. Jesus!” That’s what Mike said. Stuff yelled it too. “Jesus, God Almighty, I’m fucked, Frank, Jesus, help me.”

The math whiz had no objection to sleeping on the sofa and letting his father’s new friend have his bed. Frank approached him in the boy’s bedroom, saying, “Thanks, buddy.”

“My name is Thomas,” said the boy.

“Oh, okay, Thomas. I hear you good at math.”

“I’m good at everything.”

“Like what?”

“Civics, geography, English …” His voice trailed off as though he could have cited many more subjects he was good at.

“You’ll go far, son.”

“And I’ll go deep.”

Frank laughed at the impudence of the eleven-year-old. “What sport you play?” he asked, thinking maybe the boy needed a little humility. But Thomas gave him a look so cold Frank was embarrassed. “I mean …”

“I know what you mean,” he said and, as a counterpoint or afterthought, he looked Frank up and down and said, “You shouldn’t drink.”

“Got that right.”

A short silence followed while Thomas placed a folded blanket on top of a pillow, tucking both under his dead arm. At the bedroom door he turned to Frank. “Were you in the war?”

“I was.”

“Did you kill anybody?”

“Had to.”

“How did it feel?”

“Bad. Real bad.”

“That’s good. That it made you feel bad. I’m glad.”

“How come?”

“It means you’re not a liar.”

“You are deep, Thomas.” Frank smiled. “What you want to be when you grow up?”

Thomas turned the knob with his left hand and opened the door. “A man,” he said and left.

SETTLING DOWN INTO
darkness shaped by the moonlit edges of the window shades, Frank hoped this fragile sobriety, maintained so far without Lily, would not subject him to those same dreams. But the mare always showed up at night, never beating her hooves in daylight. The taste of Scotch on the train, two beers hours later—he’d had no problem limiting himself. Sleep came fairly soon, with only one image of fingered feet—or was it toe-tipped hands? But after a few hours of dreamlessness, he woke to the sound of a click like the squeeze of a trigger from a gun minus ammo. Frank sat up. Nothing stirred. Then he saw the outline of the small man, the one from the train, his wide-brimmed hat unmistakable in the frame of light at the window. Frank reached for the bedside lamp. Its glow revealed the same little man in the pale blue zoot suit.